2012 WSOP Main Event Down to 27, Will Play to Final Nine

Tuesday, July 17th, 2012 by Ryan

The 2012 World Series of Poker Main Event drew in an incredibly impressive 6,600 players to start things off, and we’ve officially worked our way all the way down to only 27 players, or three tables are remaining in the event. To sum up exactly how deep we are, after the players bought in for $10k each, each player who is left in the tournament is going to be walking home with at least $300,000, which is quite the payout for finishing two full tables away from the final one! The field is being headed by Marc Ladouceur, who is holding 15.876 million chips, and there have only been three players who finished up Day 6 with more than 10 million chips. The other two players who are at the top of the leaderboard are Daniel Strelitz with 12.79 million, and Robert Salaburu with 10.915 million.

Interestingly, the chip leader didn’t have an easy road to the top, as he actually had a huge bluff that pushed him to the top. He started by leading out 190,000 chips on a Q-4-4 flop, and Makhija raised after the original check to 450,000 chips. Ladouceur then re-raised to 710,000, and Makhija called. The two checked a 7 on the turn, but Makhija checked when an Ace came on the river, and Ladouceur put him all-in. Makhija looked befuddled and even stated that he didn’t want to lay his hand down, but didn’t want to call off his tournament life. It took a while and he then folded K-Q and Ladouceur showed J-9 for a complete bluff, and it was one of the biggest bluffs in this tournament, especially late. This pot was worth a total of 3 million chips for Ladouceur, and set him up nicely with 6.6 million.

Another thing that is worth noting from this 2012 WSOP Main Event is that there are two women still remaining in the field as well. Both are from overseas, as Elisabeth Hille is from Norway and Gaelle Baumann is from France, and both are still alive. There has only been one other female to make it to the final table and that was Barbara Enright, who finished in 5th place back in 1995. Since that point the highest finish was Tiffany Michelle who placed 17th in 2008.

Out of the rest of the field, you’ll see that there aren’t any of the “Phil Ivey” or “Phil Hellmuth” type names that are massive to everyone, including people who aren’t even big time poker fans, but there are still some well-known players remaining. One that caught my eye specifically was a player who is attempting to be the only one to win two bracelets at the 2012 World Series in Greg Merson, and also Jamie Robbins who had a nice run back in the 2009 WSOP Main Event when he finished in 11th place. The action plays down to only nine players from here on out, and then they will pick up the action in October for the “October Nine”. We’ll keep you updated on where things stand moving into that final nine!